


Photo Album

by palomino333



Category: L.A. Noire
Genre: Childhood Friends, Crime Scenes, Curses, Dogs, Gen, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Inspired by Music, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3857368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palomino333/pseuds/palomino333
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a flash fiction challenge: tropes. "Some doors were never meant to be opened, but..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photo Album

The woman's blue eyes, wide as if in surprise, stare up at Becket from the damp tiled floor, with a white sheet draped over her extremities, and an open bottle of pills above her outstretched arm.

The flashes of Becket's camera reflect off of her skin and eyes. Sometimes it bothers him that he regards this procedure as his work; these were people who had lost their lives, but then again, shedding tears every fallen victim would have done nothing for them. Their families and friends could cry from them. That was, if they had them.

The first time was the hardest. He snapped a photo of a man sprawled beneath a fire escape. A back alley mugging gone wrong, the perp had panicked, firing his gun into his chest cavity. The man's gray eyes appeared blank in the lights of camera flashes, his wallet torn from his pocket. Unnecessary death caught on film, Roger couldn't help but feel a little sick.

One camera flash. Martha turned to look at him, searching his face for reassurance from where the children were huddled behind the bushes before the allegedly haunted house.

He concludes the best way is to regard this current victim as another stranger to him. Martha only bore a passing similarity to her, and had died in a car wreck five years ago, the result of a slick road.

Roger kissed her forehead as she lay in the open casket, and placed his hand over hers, the ring of their engagement on her finger.

Two flashes. Charlie swallowed the lump in his throat, and decided he would start first into the house. Roger followed close behind his brother, Martha clutching at him. Charlie's flashlight wobbled for a moment as he pushed the door open.

Carruthers knelt before the mugged man's body for closer inspection of the mortal wound. Charlie's blood was spilled against Belgian snows as a result of a gunshot wound.

Three flashes. The flashlight landed on the sight of a furry shape curled in on itself upon a couch covered in dust and cobwebs. Roger gulped as the three stood transfixed in place. The shape revealed itself be a dog with a raise of its head, and defensively clenched its jaw to growl. The children, screaming, whirled about and darted off, the flashlight falling to bounce off the doorway.

Roger declares he is finished. Lowering the camera to his chest, he turns on his heel to leave, and can't help but feel the growing apprehension hanging over him at the mental image of the dog's odd yellow eyes, seeming to glow like fire.

Some doors were never meant to be opened, but…

The dog stepped down from the couch to limp across the floor on its wounded paw, and slip out into the night.

Someone always wanted to open them anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Tropes. Choose one trope from the randomly-selected TV Tropes page, and use it in your fanfic. It was dialogue trope page this week, and I chose “No Dialogue Episode.”
> 
> Roger Becket isn’t a OC; he’s actually the photographer that appears at each of the crime scenes in the game. As a result of Cole’s interactions with him being limited, I had a blank slate to work with. The crime scene involving a female victim is actually from one of the promo arts for L.A. Noire. The story itself was inspired by “Red Light” by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
> 
> A black dog, or black hound, is typically regarded as an omen preceding death in the British Isles. 
> 
> Words: 483


End file.
